Shake Up the Dow!

The venerable Dow Jones Industrial Average is at risk of becoming irrelevant if it doesn't find a way to admit Apple and Google. Among the companies that could get the boot: Hewlett-Packard, Alcoa and Bank of America.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is overdue for a makeover. The world's most famous stock index hasn't adjusted its component companies since 2009, during which time Apple (ticker: AAPL) has emerged as the world's most valuable company, with a market value of $570 billion. Also conspicuous by its absence from this elite list is Google (GOOG), the online advertising-and-search behemoth. Both represent major shifts in the global business landscape in ways that current Dow components such as Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Alcoa (AA) do...